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On Wednesday, April 26, 1950, the Waccamaw Bill received congressional review before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Indian Affairs , Committee on Public Lands. The text of the hearing preserves the “voices” of the principal parties. The committee chairman, Toby Morris, noted that Congressman Norris Poulson of California and “our colleague, Justice Bosone, of Utah” (U.S. House of Representatives 1950:1) sponsored the Waccamaw Bill (known as H.R. 7153 and H.R. 7299). The Waccamaw leaders who participated in the hearing included Chief R.T.Freeman,Lewis Jacobs, William Jacobs, Sylvester Jacobs, W . J. Freeman, and Robert Jacobs. Their advocate,James Evan Alexander,was also present.The North Carolina senators and representatives were absent but Chairman Morris would contact them at a later date (U.S. House 1950:2). The Waccamaw Bill (H.R.7153 and H.R.7299) authorized the secretary of the interior to accept “voluntary conveyances of lands owned by Waccamaw Indians in North Carolina and to issue trust patents for such lands, and for other purposes.” The Indian trust lands became “inalienable, except with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, and non-taxable until otherwise provided by Congress.” The bill called for a tribal membership and guaranteed the same “rights which are enjoyed by all other Indian tribes, including the right to participate in Indian educational facilities, Indian health facilities, Indian loan funds, and all other privileges extended to Indians and Indian tribes by the Act of June 18, 1934 (49 Stat. 984), as amended,without prejudice to the rights of citizenship now held by the said Waccamaw Indians.” The Waccamaw Bill would establish federal status for the Indians. This was the clear intent of the Wide Awake Indian Council (WAIC), Chief R. T. Freeman, Felix Cohen, James Alexander, and the Association on American Indian Affairs (AAIA). The congressmen also understood this; their questions focused on two important quali¤cations for federal Indian  The Waccamaw Bill and the Era of Termination status. First, was the tribe in question a distinct political community that governed itself ? Was the tribe socially and politically distinct from nonIndians ? Second, had the federal government acknowledged “that it had both a political relationship with the speci¤c tribe and a responsibility for it[?]”(Roth 2001:50).These two quali¤cations had been in place since 1830. The answers given by the Waccamaw demonstrated their eligibility; however , the congressmen were in no mood to accept another tribe into federal status. The policy of termination of Indian rights was gaining momentum in 1950, involving many of those who sat in review of the Waccamaw Bill. The act of June 1934 was the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA). Passed under the Roosevelt administration, the IRA ended the unpopular policy of allotment of Indian lands initiated by the 1887 General Allotment or Dawes Act. John Collier, Indian commissioner during the Roosevelt administration , championed the IRA, believing it gave Indians greater say over their affairs and strengthened their tribal governments. Under its provisions , tribes organized for the common welfare of the tribe and adopted federally approved constitutions and bylaws. This organization, Collier believed , made tribal government more effective in dealing with local, state, and federal governments. Power was shifted to the tribal governments and away from the federal government and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Deloria and Lytle 1983:14). The Waccamaw Bill was written on the recommendation and encouragement of the anthropologists and lawyers of the AAIA using the same guidelines as the IRA of 1934 (Stevens 1949–1950: 1950:1).The previous chapter discussed the Waccamaw leaders’role in shaping the IRA provisions to meet their local needs and fears. They particularly stressed that land conveyances would be voluntary under the Waccamaw Bill. The historian Alvin M.Josephy,Jr.,notes that Collier conceived the IRA of 1934 as a move toward Indian self-determination and assimilation. It strengthened tribal government while at the same time it encouraged the kind of assimilation that would re®ect “an accommodation without coercion between the dominant society and Indians who were managing and running their own affairs” ( Josephy 1998:204). Josephy says Collier and his anthropological supporters like Oliver La Farge, who later headed the AAIA, which advised the Waccamaw on the Waccamaw Bill, “practiced a kind of paternalism that considered the Indians too untutored in the white man’s ways to be able to cope with the dominant society on an equal basis” ( Josephy 1998:205). After World War II, the IRA and other New...

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